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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517574">time dilation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcalling/pseuds/nightcalling'>nightcalling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Sibling Incest, Temporary Character Death, brief allusions to past relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcalling/pseuds/nightcalling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Diego.” Luther stalks over, grabbing onto Diego’s shoulders with both hands. They’re so <i>small</i>, it’s <i>weird</i>, it’s <i>wrong</i>, it’s— “Diego, is this—are you real?”</p><p>Diego stares into those baby blue eyes that are painted over with every emotion on the spectrum, but above all, disbelief. That’s too real for an NPC.</p><p>“Oh, shit,” Diego says, and he sits upright on his bed with a loud gasp.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Diego Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>time dilation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I’m actually in the middle of writing another much longer multi-chap fic, but this idea popped into my head and it wouldn’t leave even after I’d jotted it down in my notes, so here’s this thing, written in a fugue state.</p><p>This fic is set in a post-season 2 AU where there is no Sparrow Academy and the majority of the s1 destruction (e.g. Griddy’s) has been reversed. The premise is somewhat inspired by Inception, though I mostly just wanted to write about Diego and Luther confronting their past together.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Here’s what Diego has learned after averting two apocalypses: it’s better to not have to save the world in the first place, especially if it involves bullshit sci-fi crap like time travel.</p><p>Yeah, sure, time travel might be a cool concept by itself, but when it comes with repercussions? Well, suffice it to say that anybody who’s ever preached about the consequences of messing around with the space-time continuum has a point. He knows because he’s one of the chumps who has to deal with the fallout. It would’ve been fine if he’d known about it beforehand—owning up to your shit is important and all that. The problem is, if someone had told him before the time jump, <em>hey, you know, you’re gonna come back to some real freaky shit after you set the Earth upright on its axis</em>, then he probably would’ve just let the darn Moon blow them to kingdom come.</p><p>After they’d returned to good ol’ 2019, Dad was still dead, thank Christ, but the Academy had miraculously rebuilt itself, which was… weird, but Diego wasn’t going to waste too much energy deciphering the logic behind those turn of events.</p><p>Five had wanted them to do some sort of debriefing after the mission, as if they hadn’t already been tired as fuck from running around avoiding Commission drones that had been attacking their asses. Besides, Diego had still been recovering from deflecting bullets and having his leg crushed by a tractor and coming to terms with Lila disappearing and—all that, right? He’d figured he deserved a break. A good, long break curled up on his bed, sleeping the rest of the day away. And the next day. And maybe the day after that, too.</p><p>So, he’d shot them all a farewell salute and high-tailed it out of there, purposefully ignoring Five’s protests and the loud clamor that arose from everyone else. Surprisingly, Luther had been the only one who didn’t try to stop him, had in fact let him go with nothing more than a sideward glance, which probably should’ve raised the first red flag.</p><p>There might’ve been a second red flag the moment he’d entered Al’s boxing arena and the people there had still recognized him, never mind that his room had still contained all of his belongings. Sure, they’d prevented Armageddon, but for <em>nothing</em> to have changed upon their return? He’d wondered if there were alterations that he simply hadn’t noticed because he had been too exhausted.</p><p>Even so, he wasn’t going to be ungrateful for good things, and to have a comfortable enough bed waiting for him to collapse onto was definitely one of those good things. He’d unbuckled his harness and tossed it to the floor with a clank, dove under his sheets, and allowed the darkness to take him out.</p><p>Of course, he should’ve known that things weren’t going to go that smoothly because when does the universe not like to make his life difficult?</p><p> </p><p>It’s not rare for him to dream. He dreams all the time, but they tend to come in fragments—the sweat from a particularly labored match in the ring, the smell of Eudora’s hair in the mornings after a shower, the orange sunlight the day he’d reunited with his siblings in the television shop. More often than not, he’d dream of hypotheticals. What if he’d been able to maintain his winning streak? What if Eudora hadn’t gone to the motel alone? What if he hadn’t been able to find his family? He doesn’t like to think of himself as a man with many regrets in his life, but every night that accumulates under his belt seems to want to prove him wrong.</p><p>Even so, it’s not as if he can change anything. What’s the point of dreaming about hypotheticals? But the dreams come anyway, unprompted, often in the dead of night because he’ll wake up with wide eyes and clenched fists and see the hour hand on his clock telling him that it’s three in the morning.</p><p>Here’s the thing, though: for how often he dreams, he’s never dreamed about life at the Academy, and he’s certainly never lucid enough to register everything that’s happening to him as though it’s occurring in real-time. So, when he focuses his eyes and sees his <em>seventeen-year-old self</em> staring back at him in the mirror? That is fucked up.</p><p>He blinks twice, then twice again at a slower pace. He raises his arm, the left, then the right, then stretches them behind his back. His blazer lifts up with the movement, as does his sweater vest. Even the goddamn tie wrinkles from the friction. Then, he looks at his face, <em>actually</em> looks this time, at his smooth skin and slim features and bright, naive eyes, and blinks twice more.</p><p>Why is he in his teenage body? Why is he in his room at the Academy? Why can he hear his own breathing, smell the stale air, feel the warmth of the summer July day? How does he even know that it’s July?</p><p>He turns around, and he feels the weight of his steps, the lighter bulk of his body, the skinnier limbs that flow with energy but are not experienced enough to hit every target right on its nose. He sees his bed, neatly made, the sparse shelves, the dartboard in the corner. And then he finishes rotating and comes back full circle to his reflection.</p><p>This is too real to be a dream, but he has to be dreaming—unless he accidentally jumped back in time again? Why would he be seventeen if that’s the case? Is there an arbitrary time travel rule on some page in some manual that states this is how things work if you go back too far? Or, shit, did he pull a Five by becoming stuck in his old body and then subsequently pull a Vanya by forgetting about it all?</p><p>His head is starting to hurt.</p><p>A muffled thump down the hallway distracts him from his panic, and that’s when he remembers—oh, yeah, if he’s in the Academy, then there might be other people around.</p><p>He walks out of the room, glancing inside all of the other very empty rooms, until he arrives at the room at the end of the corridor. There’s a shadow moving around on the floor. It sucks that out of all the NPCs his sleep-addled brain could’ve conjured up, it decided on <em>him</em>, but it’s better than being in this creepy house alone, he supposes.</p><p>Well, here goes nothing.</p><p>“Luther?”</p><p>When the person inside jerks his head around, Diego is completely caught off guard by the fact that it actually is Luther standing in front of him. Not because he’d expected anybody else, but because it’s been so long since he’s seen Luther like this—lanky (compared to now), bright blonde (compared to now), and very, <em>very</em> much a boy. <em>Especially</em> compared to now.</p><p>Luther also isn’t wearing a shirt, only his track pants, so there’s that.</p><p>“Uh,” Diego says. He should’ve thought this out more. They’re on better terms, ish, after the whole 1963 fiasco, but he’s not sure where they stand now, in 2019. Seems like nothing else has changed much, so perhaps their relationship is back to how it was before the jump.</p><p>Luther keeps staring at him, baby blue eyes blown wide like a deer caught in headlights, and when Diego steps closer, that’s when he notices that he’s only an inch or two shorter than Luther.</p><p>This is <em>so</em> weird.</p><p>“Hello?” Diego tries again. Fuck his higher and not as cool-sounding voice, but it’s the only thing he’s got, so he forges on. “Earth to Luther?”</p><p>“Are you,” Luther starts, and his voice is definitely also higher and not as cool-sounding as it is now either, not that Luther is cool to begin with. “Are you talking to me?”</p><p>Diego looks around the room for show. “You got somebody else hidden in here?”</p><p>“No, I just. Um. What do you want?”</p><p>Luther keeps covering his chest with his arms and peering across Diego’s head, as though he’s trying to figure out how to escape this confrontation. This Luther is decidedly nothing at all like the real Luther. Maybe Diego’s subconscious is trying to tell him something. Maybe he likes Luther timid and shy and whatever other terms fit with those traits, though when he thinks about it, Luther used to be like this sometimes, when they were kids.</p><p>And then he remembers Luther’s hesitant and dodgy expression when he’d asked Luther about Allison in the library, and he decides, yeah, seventeen-year-old Luther still exists inside of thirty-one-year-old Luther. He’s just harder to coax out, which makes sense, all things considered.</p><p>Hmm. Luther’s technically older than him now because of the time jump, isn’t he?</p><p>Diego takes in this Luther that’s almost like a relic of the past but more real than that. He doesn’t know why it seems that way, but everything is so tangible, from the smell of old paper wafting off of ancient textbooks and record sleeves to the reflection of the light bouncing off of the plane models dangling from the ceiling. Also, Luther’s face and torso and hands, they all look gentler than they do now. It’s odd, this version of Luther without the stubble and fur and gnarled skin. He’d thought that seeing the aftermath of Dad’s handiwork the night of Hazel and Cha Cha’s invasion had been shocking, but seeing the reverse of it is even more so.</p><p>It reminds him of how things used to be. They weren’t necessarily good, nothing was <em>good</em> when it came to their life at the Academy, but at least Luther hadn’t yet had the extra burden of an unwanted body thrust upon him.</p><p>Diego wonders—if this is a dream, then there’s no harm in probing a little further, right?</p><p>He takes another step closer, aligning his body with Luther’s, and extends his right hand to press all five fingers into Luther’s chest. Luther’s skin is soft, the hair there tickling his fingertips.</p><p>He peers up, into those baby blue eyes. They stare back at him with a question, but what the words behind them are, he’s not sure. He’s about to open his mouth and ask, but the colors spin and the world goes dark and he opens his eyes.</p><p>He’s now staring at the dank concrete ceiling of the boiler room. A significant downgrade, if he’s forced to admit.</p><p>When his brain is safely seated back inside his skull, he sits up, turns on the lamp, and looks across the room to the mirror sitting in the corner. There’s the sight that he’s supposed to be used to, but after what couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes inside his own mind, he’s not sure which is his real body anymore.</p><p>He buries his face in his hands, rubs at his eyes, exhales through his mouth. He’s probably still tired, his body still adjusting to the fifty-six years added onto it.</p><p>He turns off the lamp, goes back to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>He’s back in his room at the Academy. This time, he makes his way directly to Luther’s room. Luther is already facing the door when he gets there, clearly having anticipated his arrival, but that can’t be right. Luther’s an NPC in Diego’s brain. NPCs aren’t supposed to have free will.</p><p>“What’s up, big guy?” Diego says, but this Luther isn’t actually that big, so the nickname had merely been a slip of the tongue, a force of habit.</p><p>Except, Luther seems to come alive at that, responding with recognition.</p><p>“You—” Luther points a finger. “Did you just call me—”</p><p>Huh, that’s weird. This NPC is incredibly emotive.</p><p>“Big guy,” Diego repeats.</p><p>Luther keeps staring at him. It’s starting to settle uncomfortably underneath Diego’s skin because when Luther makes eye-contact with him, he’s usually hostile or irritated or annoyed and not… whatever this is.</p><p>“What?” Diego asks.</p><p>“It’s really you, isn’t it?” Luther says.</p><p>Diego jolts awake for the second time that night. His entire body is dripping with sweat, which is super gross but he doesn’t have time to deal with that right now.</p><p>He turns on his side, squeezing his eyes shut.</p><p> </p><p>He practically sprints to Luther’s room.</p><p>“Okay,” he starts, “what the hell’s going—”</p><p>“Diego.” Luther stalks over, grabbing onto Diego’s shoulders with both hands. They’re so <em>small</em>, it’s <em>weird</em>, it’s <em>wrong</em>, it’s— “Diego, is this—are you real?”</p><p>Diego stares into those baby blue eyes that are painted over with every emotion on the spectrum, but above all, disbelief. That’s too real for an NPC.</p><p>“Oh, shit,” Diego says, and he sits upright on his bed with a loud gasp.</p><p> </p><p>Five tells them their minds have become linked as a byproduct of jumping back and forth between time periods. As a bonus cherry on top, this link only forms when two people “have issues so severe that even correcting the timeline isn’t enough to make them disappear, and therefore the only way to do away with the connection is to confront the scenarios inside their dreams.”</p><p>It all sounds like total and utter bullshit.</p><p>“That’s bullshit,” Diego says. “Where’s your dream partner?”</p><p>Five shrugs in the middle of putting an umbrella into his margarita. “I don’t have one.”</p><p>“Then what about Allison’s?” Diego continues. “Klaus’s? Ben’s? Vanya’s?”</p><p>“I don’t know if this is happening to them as well, but considering nobody else has brought it to my attention… well.” Five elevates his drink in the air, gives it a little shake. “You may be an idiot but I don’t think I need to spell it out for you.”</p><p>“You expect me to believe that nobody else in this fucked up family has been handed a full plate of shit to deal with? Especially not you?”</p><p>Five takes a long, patronizing sip of his margarita and shrugs again. “What can I say? The universe knows what it’s doing.”</p><p>“And what do you even mean, ‘confront’ the scenarios? They’re dreams, aren’t they?”</p><p>“Yes. Well, if you want to get technical, they’re supposed to be memories.”</p><p>Diego blinks. “Memories.”</p><p>Five smiles, though it’s more of a disguised scoff than genuine mirth. “Clever, isn’t it? The universe likes forcing people to work through their past issues. Quite a nice character-building exercise if I do say so myself, though I must admit, I’d much rather watch from the sidelines than be a participant.”</p><p>Diego stares at Five as he stirs his drink, then looks to Luther, who hasn’t said a word since Five dropped this timey-wimey shit on them. No, Luther is just sitting there on the armchair, hunched over on his knees, trying to appear lost in thought and removed from the conversation. Absolutely unhelpful.</p><p>“I still think it’s bullshit,” Diego says.</p><p>“Feel free to continue that line of thought,” Five says, draining the rest of his drink. “It won’t stop the dream link from happening. As I see it, if the universe could only select two Hargreeves to impose this upon, then it chose correctly.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>Five waves a hand in Diego’s direction, then in Luther’s. “You two have more beef than the rest of us combined. Take the chance to dispel some of the regret. You might feel better.”</p><p>Diego pauses. “Regret?”</p><p>“You and your dream partner will go through five shared memories.” Five raises a hand and begins counting off on his fingers. “Two are moments that one of you regrets, and two are moments that the other person regrets.”</p><p>Five stops there and blips behind the counter to fix himself a second drink.</p><p>“And?” Diego presses. “What about the last memory?”</p><p>If Diego didn’t know better, he’d say that Five actually hesitates before answering.</p><p>“That’ll be one that you both regret,” Five says.</p><p>Both of them? Diego looks at Luther again, who’s staring at a location somewhere in the corner of the room. If they’ve already had one dream—<em>memory</em>—together, then…</p><p>“How do we know which memory is whose?” Diego asks.</p><p>“Strictly speaking, you don’t, but I imagine it won’t be difficult to figure out once you find yourself in a given memory.” Five raises his eyebrows and waves his straw around. “You know that feeling that you get when something’s not quite right, but you don’t know why?”</p><p>Diego nods.</p><p>Five points the straw at him. “It’ll be something like that.”</p><p>Five moves around the counter, looking ready to disappear into the ether, but he backtracks a step.</p><p>“Ah, before I forget. The results work best if the affected individuals are within a hundred-foot radius of each other when the link occurs, so I suggest you sleep here for the time being, Diego.”</p><p>“A hundred? Why a hun—”</p><p>Five blips out of the room. As Diego stares at where Five had originally been standing, he wonders if this is why the universe had decided to give the Academy back to them.</p><p>Honestly? Fuck the universe.</p><p> </p><p>He’d thought that dreaming about being in his old room was weird. Turns out, physically standing inside it? Even weirder.</p><p>Before the Academy had collapsed, he’d only returned to his room once, to retrieve his knives. He hadn’t given the rest of it a second thought—his bed, the shelves, the dartboard, they were all reminders of a childhood that was better written off as one big horrible dream. Truth be told, if Mom and Pogo hadn’t been sacrificed along with the mansion’s demise, he would’ve been more than happy to see the entire thing reduced to dust. It had felt fulfilling—redeeming, almost, to see Dad’s regime come literally toppling down.</p><p>Now that all of it is operating at full force, from the dining table to Dad’s study to their stupid portraits lining the walls, it feels as though he’s acclimating to a second skin that he knows will never fit right. Even the goddamn chandelier in the foyer is in one piece again despite having been shattered beyond repair.</p><p>The chandelier. Will that be one of Luther’s regrets, having his body revealed to Allison in such a distasteful way, his large, imposing form rendered even larger by virtue of the truth coming to light? Whatever the case, there lies a certain cruelty in the fact that the chandelier is whole again, though perhaps he’s just thinking about this too much.</p><p>Then again, perhaps he’s not because Luther doesn’t seem to want to talk to him, and Diego has tried. He’d tried after Five fucked off, he’d tried after finding Luther in the kitchen around dinnertime, he’d tried when he’d caught Luther sitting in the library with a book. All Luther had done was vacate the room in all three instances, taking his food and book and bullish stubbornness with him.</p><p>Well, fine. Clearly, 1963 Luther did not come back with them to 2019. If Luther wants to play this game, then Diego will have to beat him at it in Dream World. Hell if he’s going to let Luther fuck this up for the both of them.</p><p> </p><p>The first thing Diego notices is that there’s a guy wearing a clown mask charging at him. The second thing he notices is that the guy is pointing a gun at him, which is ridiculous because now that he can bend that shit, that asshole’s not going to know what hit him. The third thing he notices is that it’s not one guy, but two guys, one in front and one behind him.</p><p>He doesn’t actually notice this third thing until he’s tackled to the ground and held down by firm arms and a strong body. Diego’s got one hand on a knife, the other ready to wrap around his assailant’s throat, but when he twists around to face the guy, that’s when he registers that bright blonde hair and freezes.</p><p>“Luther?”</p><p>He can’t see Luther’s baby blue eyes because of the mask, but Luther’s knitted eyebrows and labored breathing are enough for him to know that Luther is decidedly not okay. Somewhere in the distance, another person takes out the gunmen—Ben, he thinks, from the squelching noises of tentacles flying around—and so he’s not exactly surprised when some blood splatters onto the ground next to him.</p><p>And then he looks closer and realizes with horror that not all of the blood came from those two unfortunate souls.</p><p>“Shit, dude, you’re bleeding,” Diego says. He drops the knife, raising both hands to press at Luther’s shoulder wound. That’s what they’d been trained to do—locate the injury, apply pressure if needed. Basic first aid 101.</p><p>Except, the second he has both palms planted on Luther’s shoulder, Luther doubles over with a pained groan and practically disintegrates in his lap. There’s also more blood trickling down the side of Luther’s face, mixing with his tears, which is terrifying because Luther barely ever cries and certainly never bleeds this much, what the <em>fuck</em>—</p><p>Diego is officially freaking out.</p><p>“Luther, hey, talk to me.” Diego tries to sit up, maybe prop Luther against him so it’s more comfortable, but Luther shakes his head and Diego gets it, he gets it. He stays still, lets Luther lie on top of him, whatever Luther wants.</p><p>“Hey, hey,” Diego tries again, mostly to keep Luther awake so he doesn’t pass out. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Luther passes out. “Stay with me, alright? Everyone’s—”</p><p>An explosion erupts, sending rubble crashing down around them. <em>They’re definitely about to kick the bucket</em>, Diego thinks as he wraps both arms around Luther’s shoulders in an attempt to shield him, except then he remembers that this is a dream so they’ll probably just wake up if they die, right?</p><p>After the ground stops shaking, leaving only ringing inside his ears, Diego opens his eyes and looks around, craning his neck as best he can to take in the situation from his upside-down view. There’s a shit-ton of dust everywhere so it’s difficult to see, but he doesn’t see any more gunmen—or any of his other siblings, which is probably a good thing. He squints, trying to make out the contents of the jagged lump that’s a couple of feet away from them. Woman raising a flag, red, white and blue, little boy next to her.</p><p>That’s <em>Liberty Leading the People</em>.</p><p>They’re in the Louvre? Which means they’re in Paris. Which means…</p><p>Oh. This is that mission. But this isn’t how it had gone. There wasn’t supposed to be a bomb. They’d diffused it in time. And Luther certainly hadn’t—</p><p>Luther coughs in his arms.</p><p>Diego does sit up this time, ignoring Luther’s disjointed complaints. He props Luther against his shoulder, pressing one hand to Luther’s wound and using the other to try and locate wherever Luther had been hit in the head. This is just a dream, it doesn’t matter what happens to them in the end because none of it is real, he <em>knows</em> this, but Luther is a warm body growing colder by the second, and it feels more real than anything else Diego has experienced.</p><p>“Luther,” Diego says again, hugging Luther close when he can’t find the head wound and Luther continues to bleed, bleed, bleed, <em>fuck</em>. “Stay with me, buddy.”</p><p>This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Diego had incapacitated both gunmen by himself. Sure, he had taken two bullets to his left shoulder that had barely avoided his bones, and sure, he’d been bedridden for nearly two months, but at least the museum hadn’t exploded and hundreds of paintings hadn’t been lost. It had been a successful mission. One of the Umbrella Academy’s finest, as all of the papers would continue to report years down the line.</p><p>He certainly didn’t have any regrets about any of it, even considering the amount of reprimanding Dad had delivered after the fact, shouting at him that he could’ve come out without a single scratch if only he’d paid more attention to his surroundings.</p><p>Whatever. No regrets. Which can only mean…</p><p>Diego looks down at Luther, who’s now breathing shallowly through his mouth. He takes Luther’s mask off, and then his own.</p><p>Luther really looks so young with his eyes closed like this. How old were they when this mission had occurred? Five had still been around, so they couldn’t have been older than thirteen. Thirteen years old, and Luther had already been overthinking his big head about things that shouldn’t have concerned him in the first place.</p><p>“How is this confronting the scenario, you idiot?” Diego says softly. Their voices haven’t even turned deep yet, for fuck’s sake.</p><p>Diego sits there with Luther, running small fingers through Luther’s damp hair, feeling Luther’s chest expand at a slower and slower rate until…</p><p> </p><p>Diego wakes up to sunlight hitting against the opposite wall of his room. It illuminates the fading wallpaper there, almost like a taunt or a jeer.</p><p>His face is wet, and so is his pillow. He wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand, then rolls onto his stomach to let the pillowcase dry the rest of the tears.</p><p>Luther is such an idiot. A self-sacrificing, reckless idiot.</p><p>All of sudden, Diego is <em>angry</em>. He launches off of his bed, throwing on a t-shirt and a pair of sweats before barging into Luther’s room. Luther isn’t there. Diego turns around, bounding down the stairs three steps at a time, and veers left into the living area. Not there either. He continues heading down, down down down, until he reaches the kitchen.</p><p>Luther is sitting there, back towards him.</p><p>“Hey, asshole,” Diego says. “What the hell was that all about?”</p><p>Luther doesn’t so much as flinch, which makes Diego even angrier.</p><p>“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Diego stalks over to the other side of the table, honestly fuming at this point. “Look at me when I’m—”</p><p>Every muscle in Diego’s body tenses from the sight of Luther burying his face in his large hands. Luther is trying so hard to keep quiet and stay as still as a statue, but Diego sees right through his bullshit to the core.</p><p>Luther barely ever cries, but today is not one of those days, it would seem. If Luther thinks that wet eyes and a few streaks down his face is enough to stop Diego from being angry, he’d better think again because Diego’s not falling for this shit, nobody gets a free pass for being an idiot.</p><p>Except, Luther lets out a choked sob and everything Diego wants to yell at him evaporates from his head, leaving only one thing.</p><p>Diego sits down in the chair across from Luther.</p><p>“Don’t ever do that again,” Diego says.</p><p>Luther finally looks up, eyes red, nose running, cheeks blotchy. He looks horrible, to be frank, but a protective warmth spreads through Diego’s chest because Luther had never let anyone see him like this during his Number One glory days. Diego had thought that Luther had simply been built that way, strong exterior and even stronger heart, but when it comes down to it, Luther is nothing more than a man who hadn’t had the opportunity to grow up as a boy. Just like the rest of them.</p><p>“Don’t ever do that again,” Diego repeats. “As much of a pain in the ass you are, the world’s not better without you in it, so.” He rubs his neck, looking away to hide his growing flush. “Jesus, your sappiness is rubbing off on me. Say something, will you?”</p><p>Luther laughs, which is enough for now. Diego looks back at him and grins.</p><p> </p><p>Diego flings his towel to the floor, barging out of the training room with a thunderous swing of the door.</p><p>He has never felt this livid in his entire <em>life</em>. Who is Luther to tell him how to use his power? Who is Luther to tell him to pick up his pace, run a little faster, curve his hands a little more? Who is Luther to act like hot shit when he’s got a million issues himself that he refuses to face?</p><p>Who is Luther to carry the mantle of Number One when he can barely even lead the team? Things would be so much easier if—</p><p>“Diego!” Luther’s voice echoes after him. “Asshole! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”</p><p>A laugh bubbles inside Diego’s chest, and he can tell it’s going to be a mean one. Good. Perfect. Mean is exactly what he needs.</p><p>Diego stops and spins around.</p><p>“Dude,” Luther says when he bumps into him, “watch where you’re going!”</p><p>“You are so full of shit,” Diego says.</p><p>Luther narrows his eyes, broadens his stance, balls up his fists. “What did you say?”</p><p>Diego leans in. “You. Are. So. Full. Of. Shit.”</p><p>“<em>You’re</em> the one who’s full of shit,” Luther shoots back. “You can’t even make it ten minutes into training without blowing your stack.”</p><p>“And whose fault do you think that is?”</p><p>“I was just suggesting that—”</p><p>“Well, I didn’t ask for your opinion, did I?” Diego lets out the laugh, lets it echo through the hallway until there’s enough time for it to take root inside Luther’s ears. “You know, I’m glad you have your little field trip to space next week.”</p><p>The briefest hint of hesitance passes over Luther’s face. Something inside Diego tells him that he doesn’t like that, not at all, even though he’d been gunning for it from the get-go, but before he can figure out what it means, his mouth continues on.</p><p>“C’mon,” Diego says. <em>Why does this feel wrong? Why does it feel like he’s about to vomit? Why does it feel like he’s on the outside looking in? </em>“I know you wanna ask why. Ask me.”</p><p>Luther sets his jaw, stretching his lips to a thin line. <em>Don’t ask why, don’t ask why, don’t ask—</em></p><p>“Why?”</p><p>
  <em>Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t—</em>
</p><p>“Because I hope that your ship blows up and I’ll never have to see your face again.”</p><p>Diego stands there in the corridor, body frozen in time. Judging from how tall Luther is and how deep his voice sounds, they’re around fifteen—the year that Luther had traveled to space with NASA for the first time.</p><p>Shit. That’s right. They’d had this huge fight before Luther left, and they didn’t talk for another month after he’d returned. Not because Diego had still been angry, but because Luther’s spacecraft had indeed veered off-trajectory for the first few minutes of the launch before it had corrected itself upon breaching the stratosphere. What if Diego had subconsciously altered the rocket’s flight somehow? Is it selfish to think that he might’ve held that much power? Is it selfish to think that anything he did back then had any effect on Luther’s life? What if the engines had indeed malfunctioned, or the armor had indeed fallen apart, or some faulty wiring had indeed caused a spark, what if—</p><p>Diego shuts his eyes. <em>Confront the scenario</em>. That’s what this whole thing is for.</p><p>“Listen,” he says, “I didn’t—”</p><p>“You didn’t mean it.”</p><p>Diego opens his eyes. Luther still looks young, but there’s an added wisdom behind those baby blues, something that Diego had never really given Luther enough credit for after they’d reunited in 1963. He takes in how Luther carries himself, his shoulders wider than the physical space they inhabit, exuding a slightly different aura from before.</p><p>This is the Luther that Diego knows now.</p><p>“You’re wrong,” Diego says. He shakes his head. “I definitely meant it.” A cruel irony, considering he’d just told Luther <em>the world’s not better without you in it</em> that morning. Five was right. The universe knows what it’s doing.</p><p>“You say a lot of things, Diego, but—” Luther tilts his head, raises his chin. “As you said to me earlier, you’re full of shit.”</p><p>Diego laughs, completely taken aback. When had Luther gotten so good at this? “Don’t let me off the hook so easily, you prick.”</p><p>“We were kids. We didn’t know better.”</p><p>“Maybe. That’s not an excuse, though.”</p><p>Luther remains silent, letting the ball stay in Diego’s court. Luther really has gotten better at this, knowing when to let other people take the blame. It’s another thing that Diego hasn’t given Luther enough credit for, but the truth is, he’s probably been too wrapped up inside his own head to even notice how Luther’s year and a half in Dallas has changed him. Those changes have probably been for the better, though there are likely some darker days that Luther hasn’t yet told anyone about.</p><p>A sharp longing hits Diego in the chest, and he suddenly has an urge to know about that lost time. Had Luther felt more or less alone than he’d been on the Moon? Certainly less, right? He hopes it was less.</p><p>Diego swallows. “You know,” he says, mouth moving like molasses, “I’d completely forgotten about this fight until now, and I think I just figured out why.”</p><p>He looks into Luther’s eyes, takes a deep breath, and—</p><p>Sunlight again. The room feels warmer than it had yesterday morning, but the ache inside his chest remains, leaving him cold.</p><p> </p><p>Diego spends the entire morning in the city. He goes to the park, goes to the old precinct, goes to the boxing arena. At noon, he bypasses lunch in favor of walking all the way to Griddy’s and grabs a jelly-filled doughnut and a cup of coffee instead. He eats half of the doughnut but doesn’t taste it, drinks all of the coffee and doesn’t taste that either.</p><p>After tossing the rest of the doughnut and the empty coffee cup into the trash, he walks to the bowling alley, to the Icarus theater, and then he realizes as the sun is starting to set that he should’ve driven because now he has to walk all the way back to the Academy.</p><p>The evening air is chilly, exactly like every other evening in April. Nothing really has changed. Nothing, except…</p><p>He raises his head. There aren’t any stars or clouds tonight, just a sliver of the Moon to illuminate the sky.</p><p>When he finally returns to the mansion, Luther isn’t on any of the main floors, which leaves one place he could be.</p><p>The wind is a little stronger on the open roof, but nothing that Diego can’t handle. He zips up his jacket, rolls down his sleeves.</p><p>Luther, on the other hand, is wrapped up in that huge trenchcoat of his. Actually, it might be a different coat, considering he probably left his old one back in 1963. Does Luther own more than one of those things?</p><p>“You still come up here, huh?” Diego asks.</p><p>“Best view in the house,” Luther replies, and Diego can tell from his tone that he means it. Even after all that Dad had done to Luther, after he’d taken something Luther had loved and turned it into his personal hell, Luther could still conjure up admiration for that chunk of rock in the sky.</p><p>“Do you wish that you’d been able to go there the first time?” Diego says.</p><p>Luther looks at him.</p><p>“With NASA,” Diego clarifies. “Before…”</p><p>Luther glances back up at the Moon. “It wouldn’t have made a difference, would it? This,” Luther claps his chest once, “was still gonna happen one way or the other.”</p><p>Luther probably hadn’t meant anything by that, but those words are like a knife to Diego’s gut.</p><p><em>You didn’t mean it</em>, Luther had told him.</p><p>No. He definitely did.</p><p>“I need to tell you something,” Diego says. He walks until his right shoulder is flushed against Luther’s left, then turns around. He keeps his eyes fixed on the seam of Luther’s coat. “That day, after the chandelier fell on you and I found out what Dad did, I thought my words had finally caught up to you in a different way.”</p><p>After one, five, ten seconds, he looks up.</p><p>There’s barely enough moonlight casting down from the sky, but the baby blue of Luther’s eyes is prominent even out here in the darkness. Those eyes might be operating on their own laws of physics at this point.</p><p>“You certainly gave it your best shot,” Luther says, “but I’m still here.”</p><p>Diego stares, stunned.</p><p>Luther smiles. “You’re growing soft.”</p><p>“I am going to hit you.”</p><p>“Would you still hit me if I said it’s kinda nice?”</p><p>Luther brushes past him and exits the roof, leaving him there with that. Diego shivers as a particularly strong gust of wind billows through his bones, and the sharp longing from before roars back to life inside his chest.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t need a preamble this time. One look at his surroundings and he knows what memory this is.</p><p>This is too cruel. The universe is too cruel. He wants to yell at the sky, yell at the gods above if there are even any gods. He’d never believed there were, but now that he’s forced to relive this day, he can’t help but think, how could something like this happen by chance? Are they really such a rotten bunch that even luck has turned its back on them?</p><p><em>Take it back</em>, he pleads.<em> Take it back, take it all back, I’ll trade my life for his, please</em>.</p><p>
  <em>Please.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Diego marches up to Luther at the mini-bar, fists hardened and adrenaline dialed up to the maximum.</p><p>“Why didn’t you save him this time?” Diego demands, grabbing Luther by the arm that’s holding a drink. The whiskey sloshes out of Luther’s glass, spilling onto his pants and the floor.</p><p>“It wasn’t real,” Luther says after refilling his glass. He drains half of it, refills it again. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”</p><p>“<em>I don’t care</em>. If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have taken those bullets for me.”</p><p>“You told me to stop doing that.”</p><p>“But I didn’t tell you to not save Ben when you had the chance, what the <em>hell</em>.”</p><p>Luther keeps refilling his glass instead of giving Diego a proper answer, which pisses him off like crazy. It’s like—It’s like Luther doesn’t—</p><p>“Are you telling me,” Diego says slowly, “that this memory was one of mine? That I’m the only one regretting what happened?”</p><p>Luther looks at him with sad eyes.</p><p>Diego stares at him. “Are you serious? You can’t be serious.”</p><p>“It’s not one of my regrets when it comes to you.”</p><p>Diego laughs. His voice sounds the way it did during their fight in the second memory, edging towards frantic, bordering on hysterical.</p><p>“All this time, I thought you’d changed,” he says. “Turns out you’re becoming just like Dad.”</p><p>Luther flinches, the glass he’s holding nearly cracking under his touch. “You don’t mean that.”</p><p>“Then tell me,” Diego says, trying not to outright plead because Luther doesn’t deserve his pleading. “Please explain this to me because every conclusion I’m coming up with is that you’d rather let Ben die than save him.”</p><p>“No, of course not!” Luther slams his glass down and stands up, stretching out into his full height. “You know more than anyone that I’d trade my life for his, same as you.”</p><p>“Then how could you—”</p><p>“Diego, stop, will you just listen—”</p><p>“Fuck you, I don’t have to listen to anything you have to say.” Diego twists out of Luther’s grasp when Luther reaches out because <em>fuck him</em>.</p><p>Luther latches back onto both of Diego’s wrists, tightening his grip. “Diego, please listen to me.”</p><p>“Let <em>go</em> of me, you bastard.”</p><p>“Of course I regret not having saved Ben. I regret it every day of my life, but you know what? You know what?” Luther shakes him. “<em>Diego</em>.”</p><p>“What, <em>what?</em>”</p><p>“I never said that Ben’s death isn’t one of my regrets. I said that it’s not one of my regrets when it comes to <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“What the fuck does that even mean?”</p><p>Luther groans with frustration. “It means I don’t regret having saved you, you asshole!”</p><p>Diego freezes, air completely punched out of his lungs. That’s not fair. Luther can’t say that and expect him to accept it.</p><p>“Ben was worth more than all of us put together,” Diego spits out.</p><p>“I know it’s easier to think that. I know, okay? God knows I’ve thought it myself a million times, but—” Luther shakes him again, forcing Diego to look him in the eye. “It’s not true. <em>It’s not true</em>. We lost Ben and I’ll never forgive myself, but I won’t have you stand here and tell me that you’d rather I lose you instead of him because I don’t think that. I never have and I never will.”</p><p>Luther exhales with his entire body, shoulders heaving from the motion. His grip on Diego softens until his fingers are loosely curled around Diego’s wrists, thumbs rubbing along Diego’s pulse points. Try as Diego might to resist it, he finds himself giving in to the sensation.</p><p>When did Luther become this type of person? The type to say this kind of shit and have people want to believe him?</p><p>Luther releases one of Diego’s wrists, and Diego almost tells Luther to put his hand back where it belongs when Luther raises that same hand to Diego’s face instead.</p><p>“What’re you—”</p><p>Luther brushes his thumb underneath the shadow of Diego’s left eye, running it along his cheekbone.</p><p>“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you cry,” Luther says.</p><p>Diego blinks, and another tear falls down his face. Luther repeats the motion from before, wiping it away.</p><p>“You’ve seen me,” Diego reminds Luther, even though he’d prefer to forget about it. “That dinner with Dad.”</p><p>Luther shakes his head. “Not like this.”</p><p>“Not like what?”</p><p>“Like all you want to do is cry.”</p><p>Diego scoffs, but his heart isn’t in it. “You’re an expert in this now, too?”</p><p>Luther pauses in the middle of stroking Diego’s cheek, keeping his fingers there. Their tips are rough, of course they are, that’s just how it is now, but it’s not the kind of roughness that’s off-putting. Diego feels the concavity of his skin meeting his bone, and he wonders, is he leaning into Luther’s touch, or has Luther applied additional pressure?</p><p>“I never told you this,” Luther says, “but I saw you in Ben’s room the day after the funeral.”</p><p>Diego’s throat seizes. That was supposed to be private. How dare Luther spy on him? What was he even doing there, hoping to catch Diego off his game or something?</p><p>“Before you throw any more accusations at me,” Luther says, wiping another tear off of Diego’s cheek, “I only saw you because I wanted to do the same.”</p><p>The pounding inside Diego’s chest speeds up to match the rush of blood inside his ears. “You should’ve joined me.”</p><p>“Like you would’ve let me? You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself.” Luther looks equal parts exasperated and fond, which is one emotion too many for Diego to unpack at the moment.</p><p>“Maybe that was our problem,” Diego says instead. “Never being in the same room when it mattered.”</p><p>“Well, I’m here now.” Luther releases Diego’s other wrist and steps closer. He bows down, leaning in, and gives Diego enough time to push him away before wrapping his arms around Diego’s shoulders.</p><p>It should be awkward, and maybe he’ll find it embarrassing later when he looks back on the moment, but for now, Diego hugs Luther around the waist and sinks his weight onto Luther’s broad form.</p><p>He’d never admit it out loud, but this is kind of nice.</p><p>“I was lying earlier,” Diego mumbles into Luther’s shirt. It smells like the detergent that Mom used to use, lavender with a hint of vanilla. “You’re nothing like Dad.”</p><p>“Glad to hear.”</p><p>“You wanna know why?”</p><p>Luther hums.</p><p>“Because Dad would rather off himself before having to hug anyone.”</p><p>Luther rumbles with laughter, and Diego finds himself doing the same.</p><p> </p><p>He’s standing in the rain with nothing more than a gym bag slung over his shoulder, staring at near-illegible handwriting scrawled on a soggy piece of paper stapled to a wooden telephone post. His heart drops when he makes out the words and realizes what exactly he’s looking at.</p><p>
  <em>Al’s Boxing Arena</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Room Available in Exchange For Work</em>
</p><p>The thing is, he’s not supposed to feel this way. He <em>hadn’t</em> felt this way. In fact, he’d felt vindictive, righteous, elated, even, but above all, free.</p><p>So, why isn’t he feeling any of that? If he’s already contributed his share of two regrets, and they’re not at the fifth memory yet, then this should be one of Luther’s. Did the universe screw up? Did it take a look at the two of them and think, <em>well, the rules say two regrets each but guess what? Y’all are so fucked up that you get to deal with a few more before you reach the grand finale. Secret mission unlocked, go forth and conquer.</em></p><p>Except, that doesn’t make any sense either because leaving the Academy had been one of the best decisions of his life.</p><p>Where is Luther, anyway? Diego rotates a full three hundred and sixty degrees and doesn’t see Luther in any direction.</p><p>Well, who’s to say that this is even one of the five scenarios? Maybe these past few days have fucked his brain up so much that it decided to throw in a bunch of extra trips down memory lane for good measure. It’s not as if Five had said the dream links would occur consecutively.</p><p>He continues east towards the boxing arena. The rain doesn’t relent, continues to fall even harder as a matter of fact, so much so that when he finally arrives at his destination, he thinks he might’ve gotten hypothermia—mostly because he’s not sure if he’s imagining the lump taking up space in front of the arena.</p><p>Luther is crouched on the ground, sagging against the wall, also very much soaked to the bone. He doesn’t seem to notice Diego’s presence, so Diego walks up to him and nudges him in the shin with his foot.</p><p>“You alive, there?” Diego says.</p><p>Luther slips as he gets up, feet moving too fast to gain enough traction on the wet tarmac. He brushes a few strands of his hair out of his eyes. They stick haphazardly to the sides of his forehead, unkempt and messy. Nothing like the cookie-cutter poster boy for the Academy.</p><p>“That was sooner than I’d expected,” Luther says.</p><p>Diego furrows his eyebrows.</p><p>“I didn’t know when you started staying here, but I also didn’t know where else you might’ve gone, so…”</p><p>Diego runs that sentence through his mind, then runs it again to double-check his understanding. “Were you just gonna keep sitting here like an idiot until I turned up?”</p><p>“I didn’t have a lot of options.”</p><p>“You were what, at the mansion? You could’ve waited until the rain stopped, at least.”</p><p>Luther lets out a laugh, sounding so defeated that Diego almost wishes he hadn’t said anything. “Last time I waited, you never came back.”</p><p>Is that what this is about? Luther feeling guilty that he didn’t try harder to—what, keep Diego around? Normally, Diego would send his fist flying at Luther’s face, but maybe it’s the rain, or maybe it’s because Luther looks so pathetic, or hell, maybe it’s both, but right now, Diego’s not feeling the fight.</p><p>“Look,” he says after heaving a sigh. “I get that we’re burying the hatchet—or multiple hatchets, whatever, but if you’re still trying to blame me or guilt-trip me or—I don’t know, yell at me for leaving after all this time, then you clearly still don’t get it.”</p><p>Luther holds up his hands. “No, nothing like that. I get it now, I do. I just… I wish it didn’t take Dad’s funeral for us to talk again, that’s all.”</p><p>“We saw each other at Allison’s wedding.”</p><p>“Yeah, but we didn’t talk.”</p><p>“What would we have even talked about? The Umbrella Academy? Dad? <em>Ben? </em>We had nothing left. There was nothing between us without Dad’s stupid games.”</p><p>Luther bunches up the ends of his jacket, lowering his eyes until rainwater drips off of his eyelashes. “Do you really mean that?”</p><p>Diego pauses. This is really eating Luther from the inside and out. Then, Diego does the math—the years alone in the house, the years on the Moon, the years in Dallas. That’s a lot of time trapped inside one’s mind with nobody to share it with. Maybe that’s all Luther had ever wanted, someone to share his loneliness with.</p><p>“It was raining that day too, wasn’t it?” Diego says.</p><p>Luther looks up.</p><p>“Dad’s funeral.” Diego tilts his head. “Well, if you could call it a funeral.”</p><p>“I did the best with what I had, alright? Besides, you were no help.”</p><p>Diego watches Luther knead his hands together, twisting and turning. “Is there something else you’re getting at, here?”</p><p>Luther points at Diego’s gym bag. “I really wanted to ask you not to go that day.”</p><p>“We both know that’s not how it works.”</p><p>“I know. That’s why I kept my mouth shut. You were gonna do whatever you were gonna do.”</p><p>“Then what’s the point of telling me now?”</p><p>“You said that maybe our problem was never being in the same room when it mattered.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>Luther steps closer. There’s none of the rehearsed honesty that he’d fed the press whenever he’d worn the uniform, no million-dollar smile or confident jut of his chin in case any cameras had been directed his way, just a boy accompanied by a determination that’s about to burst out of his heart.</p><p>Luther reaches out to take Diego’s gym bag away. Diego lets gravity do its work, lets the strap slide off of his shoulder, but only because he desperately wants to know what Luther is going to say next.</p><p>Luther drops the bag to the ground and looks back up, baby blue eyes very, very blue amidst the rain.</p><p>“So now I’m asking you to stay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why are all of the memories from when we were kids?”</p><p>Five breaks from his coffee and his paper to peer at Diego, face stoic. “You tell me. It’s your brain.”</p><p>“Nuh-uh.” Diego shakes his head and snatches the paper away. “Don’t give me any of that reverse psychology shit. Answer my question.”</p><p>“And I really don’t have a response for you,” Five says, articulating slowly. “Believe me or don’t, I don’t care, but that’s the truth.”</p><p>“Bullshit. There are so many memories that the universe could’ve picked from, why’d it pick these ones?”</p><p>“I think there’s a slight misunderstanding here. The universe isn’t choosing the memories. You are.”</p><p>Diego considers this as Five reaches across the table and steals back his paper. “I am?”</p><p>“That’s why I said I don’t know,” Five says, flipping the paper to the second page. “Your brain is doing this. You have a problem with it, take it up with yourself.”</p><p>“So you’re saying it’s a coincidence that Luther’s memories are also from when we were kids.”</p><p>Five sighs. “There are no such things as coincidences. The brain makes connections even when we think it’s sitting idly in the background. Your and Luther’s minds are linked, so they must’ve come to a compromise.”</p><p>“Compromise?”</p><p>“Perhaps that’s not the right word. An agreement, if you will. Or, an understanding. Whatever the case, you need to remember that this link isn’t happening out of the blue. There’s something that both of you agree needs to be fixed, even if you won’t admit it.”</p><p>Five slouches against the back of his seat with a devilish grin. “Which is the real reason why you’re asking me this while I’m trying to enjoy a nice, sunny afternoon in Griddy’s, isn’t it? You’re dreading the fifth memory.”</p><p>Diego looks away, begins scanning the menu.</p><p>Five scoffs and takes a sip of his coffee. “I thought so.”</p><p>“Nobody’s dreading anything. We’re acing this shit.”</p><p>“Don’t try that on me. You’re too easy to see through. You’re like a giant glass cube, large on the ego but fragile to the touch.”</p><p>“Oh, pulling out the metaphors now, are we?”</p><p>“Look, feel free to keep wasting your time talking to me, grab yourself a doughnut and make yourself comfortable, but the question you should ask yourself is, why are you stalling? What’s waiting in the last memory that has you avoiding Luther since you got out of the fourth dream?”</p><p>Diego squints. “How do you know about that? You been spying on us?”</p><p>“Nothing of the sort. You simply aren’t very subtle. Neither of you is.”</p><p>“You’re totally spying, you little creep.”</p><p>“Shut up.” Five folds his paper neatly in half and lays it aside. “Listen, think of the memories as puzzle pieces. They each contribute something to a larger whole. If you can figure out what that is, you’ll be on your way. Besides, something tells me that you already know and simply need an extra push to come to terms with it, so here’s the push.”</p><p>Five leans forward, putting a hand on Diego’s shoulder. “The link is only there to help you along. It’s pointless if you don’t let its effects translate to the real world.”</p><p>Diego runs one hand through his hair, picks at a napkin with the other. “I never asked the universe to play therapist.”</p><p>“But now that you’re here, why don’t you take advantage of it?” Five softens his gaze, which means trouble because Five is only ever this soft when he really wants people to hear what he’s saying. “I know what it’s like to remain passive and let the talking happen inside a dream. It’s safer. Fewer chances of having your actions chewed up and spit back into your face. But you need to ask yourself, are you really content with that? Do you really want to go back to daydreams and hypotheticals when you could have the real deal?”</p><p>Diego holds up a hand. “Are you done?”</p><p>“I’m done if you’re ready to stop being a kid and grow up.”</p><p>“That’s rich coming from an old man trapped inside a thirteen-year-old’s body.”</p><p>“And yet, this old man is infinitely wiser than you are, so who’s laughing now?” Five leans away. “Not everybody gets a chance to make amends, you know. Don’t shoot the horse in the face.”</p><p><em>Amends</em>. Five says that as if that’s all it is, but he’s right. There’s more to it than Diego had originally signed up for, but now that he’s here, at the gate before the final stage, it makes sense that it’s come down to this. It’s kind of embarrassing that the universe had apparently been so bored that it decided to intervene in his personal life, but if this hadn’t happened, he’s not sure if he ever would’ve gotten to this point, admitting all sorts of things to himself that he’d preferred to write off as a dream along with the rest of his childhood. It had been easier. Simpler.</p><p>But things always come back to bite him in the ass, and if this is the one thing that’s going to be different than before, then it’s a change he’s more than willing to make.</p><p>“It looks like you’re thinking about it,” Five says. “That’s good. Keep thinking. Just don’t think for too long and lose your chance.”</p><p>“Do you ever shut up, Five?”</p><p>“Only if I feel like it.” Five gives him a smile, an earnest one. “You’ll be fine. Good luck.”</p><p>Luck, huh? Diego stares down at his hands, balls them up into fists. Perhaps he’d been wrong before—perhaps Lady Luck hasn’t yet turned her back on them if she’s allowing him this one chance.</p><p>Time to own up to his shit.</p><p> </p><p>When he opens his eyes to his seventeen-year-old face, he’s no longer surprised. What surprises him is the spike in his heart rate that comes with it, along with the heat in his palms, the nerves tingling his skin.</p><p>It’s so much more visceral than the first three instances. Is it because he had been so focused on gaining his bearings that he hadn’t even realized this was a memory? Or is it as Five had said, that he’d been avoiding considering the possibility that he’d immediately shut it down before he could think any more about it?</p><p>It had been the middle of July, but the weather had been relatively mild for the dead of summer. He remembers because he had been able to wear every layer of his uniform without breaking a sweat. There hadn’t been a mission, nobody had a fight with anybody, nobody had been getting ready to leave. Training had gone well, he’d even picked up a new trick with his knives, and Dad had even looked semi-pleased, or as pleased as the asshole could manage.</p><p>Altogether, it had been a decent day. Maybe that’s what had spurred him to do the stupidest thing he’d ever done. He’d been riding the high of the rollercoaster so carelessly that he hadn’t anticipated the drop would send him crashing to the ground.</p><p>He makes his way to Luther’s room. It’s closed this time. He raises his hand, knocking twice on the birchwood.</p><p>“Luther?”</p><p>No answer.</p><p>He knocks again. “Luther? C’mon, you know we have to do this whether we like it or not.”</p><p>Still no answer.</p><p>“I’m coming in.”</p><p>The doorknob complies under his touch, and there Luther is, crouched over on his bed, back towards him. It reminds Diego of finding Luther in the same position the morning after he’d learned the heavy weight of Luther’s limp body.</p><p>Diego closes the door. Even within the confines of their own minds, this feels too personal, too intimate for anybody else to risk taking a peek.</p><p>“Luther, please look at me.”</p><p>“Why?” Luther finally says through a badly hidden sniffle. “So you can laugh at me again?”</p><p>Diego takes a step closer. “No, so I can fix this.”</p><p>“You said it yourself. That’s not how this works.”</p><p>“Is that the only reason?” Another step. “That we’re inside a dream and not out there?”</p><p>Luther bows his head and hunches his shoulders, somehow forcing his body into an even smaller shape, and stays silent.</p><p>“I’m not the same person I was thirteen years ago,” Diego says.</p><p>Luther wraps his arms around his body, clutching at the pale, flawless skin, and laughs mirthlessly. “I’m not either.”</p><p>“Then is that the reason? That you think I’ll say no because of that?”</p><p>“I don’t want you to say yes out of pity. I don’t want your pity.” Luther digs his fingernails into his arms, leaving crescents in their wake. If only Diego could destroy this wall between them, it would be so easy to reach out and massage Luther’s skin until the red goes away.</p><p>Diego adds three more steps. “You keep putting words in my mouth, but that’s not what I’m saying. Why won’t you believe me?”</p><p>“Because the first time, you—” Luther turns his neck, eyes desperate, then ducks his head back down. “You know why. You don’t need me to tell you.”</p><p>“Then why do you think that I’m here?” He’s at seven steps now. “Why do you think out of all of the memories we could’ve had for our last one, we’re in this one?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Another sniffle. “The universe probably fucked up.”</p><p>Diego can’t help but laugh a little. Figures that they’d both come to that conclusion before being set straight. “That’s what I thought too, but guess what? Five said that we pick the memories, not the universe.”</p><p>Luther finally turns around.</p><p>“Do you believe me now?” Diego walks the final three steps over to the edge of the bed, rounding out to an even ten, and kneels down next to Luther. The mattress dips from their combined weight, inclining their bodies towards each other.</p><p>Diego unwraps Luther’s limbs from around his torso and places a palm against Luther’s chest, feeling the softness of his skin, the gentle hum of his heartbeat. He looks up, into those baby blue eyes. They’re staring back at him with a question, and this time, he knows what the words behind them are. He’s about to open his mouth and answer, but the colors spin and the world goes dark and he opens his eyes.</p><p>He’s now staring at the off-white ceiling of his room in the Academy. A significant downgrade, if he’s forced to admit.</p><p>When his brain is safely seated back inside his skull, he sits up, runs his hands over his arms, then hugs his own body. This is real.</p><p>He launches off of his bed instead of going back to sleep, making his way down the same old corridor and bursting into Luther’s room.</p><p>Luther is sitting there on his bed, one foot on the floor, one foot still covered by the sheets, looking every bit like the deer in the headlights that he’d been during the first iteration of the dream.</p><p>Diego walks over, only five large strides with his older body, and kneels on the bed in front of Luther. He takes Luther’s face in his hands, feeling the stubble there, then runs his palms down Luther’s neck, mapping a path to Luther’s chest. He cards his fingers through the trimmed fur, across the gnarled skin, touching all of the imperfections that match the negative thoughts inside Luther’s head.</p><p>He rests his hands there, letting Luther know of their weight, then raises his eyes, looking back into those baby blues. They’re staring up at Diego with the same question that Diego hadn’t had time to answer before his own brain had rudely kicked him out.</p><p>
  <em>What do you want?</em>
</p><p>Maybe it’s a good thing that he was kicked out because now, he’ll get to tell this to Luther with his real voice.</p><p>Diego smiles. “I want you,” he says, and then he leans in and kisses Luther.</p><p>Luther had asked him to stay. He supposes that’s easier than having to leave all over again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for sticking around ‘til the end! I did not mean for this to be so sappy but here we are, 10k words later. Also, I purposefully left the last memory vague so you can decide for yourself what went down. :)</p><p>Comments and/or kudos are very much appreciated! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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